Tea Party May Lose Food-Stamp Fight

House Republican efforts to cut
record U.S. government spending on food stamps may instead
backfire and make it more probable funding will continue at
existing levels.

The House approved last week, over Democratic objections, a
five-year bill governing aid to farmers that leaves out funding
for food stamps. The programs have been coupled for decades in a
bargain among rural and urban lawmakers.

With the White House threatening to veto the House bill,
and Senate leaders insisting on keeping the farm and nutritional
issues together, it is more likely that the food stamp program
will continue if Republicans won’t compromise, Senate
Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow said.

“If you want reform, if you want to be able to cut down on
waste, fraud and abuse, that doesn’t happen unless we pass”
food-stamp legislation as part of a farm bill, Stabenow, a
Michigan Democrat, in a conference call with reporters
yesterday. “It’s going to take not just bipartisan support in
the Senate, it’s going to take bipartisan support in the
House.”

Separate Bills

House Republican leaders vowed to craft separate
legislation to fund food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program. A proposal designed to appeal to
conservatives who want major cuts won’t gain Senate or White
House approval, making it more likely that the program’s funding
would continue without reductions, Stabenow said.

Food stamps, which were created through legislation
separate from the farm bill, don’t necessarily die without a new
agriculture plan, Stabenow said. Congress would likely continue
to operate the program through other spending bills.

Annual average food-stamp enrollment has risen 77 percent
since 2007, with the number of recipients falling only once
since 2000. Spending last year was a record $78.4 billion, more
than double its level four years earlier. Monthly food-stamp
enrollment peaked in December at 47.8 million and was 45.7
million in April, the most recent month available. Spending
reached its highest level at $6.47 billion in November.

Supercenters such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT) and discounters
such as Aldi Inc. and SuperValu’s Save-A-Lot chain benefit from
the program, which subsidizes nutrition purchases for lower-income families, according to a Bloomberg analysis. The program
has become for conservatives who want to cut spending, including
those affiliated with the Tea Party, a symbol of dependency on
government.

‘Real Debate’

The separation of food- and farm-aid makes possible a real
debate about nutrition spending, Representative Mike Kelly, a
Pennsylvania Republican, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”
program on July 14.

“I have never talked to one person that says ‘We don’t
want to take care of the most vulnerable,’” he said. “But I
have talked to people that said the system’s broken. And when
they look at what’s going on, we’re wasting billions of dollars
on a program that doesn’t seem to be lifting people out of
poverty.”

The party risked damaging its brand by being viewed as
unconcerned about the needs of the poor, Burdett Loomis, a
political science professor at the University of Kansas in
Lawrence, said

That may not affect conservative Republicans in whose
constituents want steeper government spending cuts, but it could
hurt the party nationally.

47 Percent

“It’s another one of these 47 percent things,” Loomis
said, referring to the presidential candidate Mitt Romney
comment about government dependency to a group of donors that
was secretly videotaped. “The real damage isn’t to Tim Huelskamp in western Kansas or Mike Pompeo in Wichita. The real
damage is to Republican presidential hopefuls.”

The House approved a version of the agriculture law
reauthorizing only farm subsidies last week, 216-208. The bill
has traditionally passed Congress via a coalition of
conservative rural lawmakers and urban Democrats. The House last
month defeated a plan with both elements, sending leadership in
search of a new strategy. A bipartisan Senate plan encompassing
farm and food aid passed that chamber 66-27 June 10. The current
legislation begins to expire Sept. 30.

The separate food-stamp-only approach embraced by the House
leaders shows a political calculation by Speaker John Boehner,
an Ohio Republican, that budget hawks are more important than
farm-bill backers, said Parke Wilde, a nutrition policy
professor at Tufts University in Boston.

Split Support

At the same time, the risk of the Republican move is that
the split would lower overall political support for the farm
bill, putting any final compromise, which may include cuts to
food stamps unsatisfactory to either party, in jeopardy, Wilde
said.

“There isn’t any political damage as being seen as being
anti-food stamp. Republicans have been saying that broadly in
public already,” Wilde said in an interview. Still, “are
senators even going to entertain a split from the bill? If they
rejoin the bills, will Boehner bring it back up for a floor
vote?”

Reauthorization Needed

Stabenow said yesterday she’s waiting for the House to send
its farm-only bill to the Senate and will deal with food stamps
when the separate proposal is also approved. A five-year
reauthorization of policies is necessary, even with small
reductions in funds, to shield the program from sudden changes,
she said.

Congress may ultimately agree to farm legislation that
includes food stamps, keeping intact the decades-old coalition,
Sarah Binder, a legislative political scholar at Brookings
Institution in Washington, said in an interview.

If not, it isn’t clear what the political consequences will
be, Binder said.

“As the economy begins to recover, I think the sense that
we need to keep spending more probably starts to wane,” Binder
said in an interview. “The constituency served by this program
is less organized, less likely to be vocal, and of course don’t
control the House of Representatives.”